Developments since 1967 at small, private, nonelite colleges are the subject of new research, providing rarely seen insight into changes over time in one of the most worried-about sectors in higher ed.

Robert Blouin, dean of the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been selected as provost and executive vice chancellor there.
Patrice DiQuinzio, interim provost and dean of the college at Washington College, in Maryland, has been named to the job on a permanent basis.

American University of Malta undertakes mass firings of faculty. The start-up institution, run by a for-profit company with no track record in higher education, has struggled to find students and is mired in environmental and political controversy in Malta.

Professors debate the role -- or absence -- of the historian in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's new Vietnam documentary, concurring that a lack of critical perspective makes the film more milquetoast than masterpiece.

Historians urge departments to give their graduate students the confidence, skills and support to succeed in whatever career paths they choose. That means going out of their way to avoid implying that nonfaculty jobs are somehow “less than.”